Apple AirPods hit the Apple Store – but too late for the holidays for most buyers

It looks like Apple is going to get its new wireless AirPod earbuds to customers just in the nick of time for the holidays…. well, at least for a few people. The sleek headphones were first revealed in September and finally popped up for sale on Apple’s site on Tuesday. While early buyers will get them before Christmas, the rest of us won’t be able power them up for another month, according to the current shipping estimate.

Quick recap: the AirPods are part of Apple’s answer to removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, & the wireless and highly-loseable devices will give you five hours of tunes or two hours of talk time on a single charge, but you can pop them into their handy storage case for a quick recharge as needed. They will also work with other Bluetooth enabled devices, according to Apple, but you can only get their full range of functionality with Apple devices, obviously.

Gotta have ‘em before Christmas? Looks like ebay is your best bet there, but be prepared to pay about double – or more – to get them in time. Or you could pop for some nice wireless Beats kit instead for just a little bit more cash.

Now whole groups can annoy each other

Hey Snapchatters, the latest update to your favorite app includes a long-wished for feature: group messaging. Now you can gossip in groups as large as 16 people.

While in group mode, you can single anyone in the group out for private messages, and true to snapchat’s core premise, all your group chats turn to vapor in 24 hours. Music-ID app Shazam is more integrated as well, and you can name that tune within the Snapchatt app now. Snapchat launched in 2012, and just over four years later, they’re getting ready to go IPO with a valuation of between 25 and 35 billion dollars. You can download the updated app today.

Looking forward to not driving while driving?

Here’s a new tech acronym to learn: V-2-V. That stands for “vehicle to vehicle,” and it means that whatever car, truck or scooter you’re piloting has the ability to “talk” to other vehicles with V2V abilities, and the chatter can include traffic information, accident avoidance, blind spot mitigation, location information and much more. Now, Nit-sah in the U.S. is looking to make V2V mandatory in new cars, and they’re testing out the tech right now on public roads in Michigan.

Where else might V2V tech turn up? Yep: self-driving cars, of course. V2V, combined with the many other autonomous technologies needed for cars to safely navigate cities, could reduce accidents by as much as 80 percent according to studies. You can even comment on what you think of the idea, just hit this link for more information to have your say.

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